A Proportional Response
by moonswirl
Summary: Gleekathon, day four hundred and five: After Vocal Adrenaline eggs Rachel, Will has to decide how to deal with it.


_Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 18th cycle. Now cycle 19!_

**TV Titles Cycle **- So this is Cycle 20! I wanted to do something special, so here we are! Some of you may remember a while back me asking for episode titles from tv shows. I've always found that a lot of shows have great episode titles, so this is how this cycle came to be. Each story will be inspired and titled after an episode from a different show. The influence of the episode may vary from story to story, not seeking to rely completely on it ;) You'll see...  
**Today's Show/Title:** "The West Wing" - _A Proportional Response_

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**"A Proportional Response"  
Will **

He always did his best not to involve himself more than what his position demanded or accepted. And within their club itself that could be done easily enough. But then there was the outside, those people who made it their personal goal to come at his kids, to try and tear them apart in one way or another as individuals or as a group… He couldn't stay and pretend he was okay being neutral.

Of course there was the big one: Sue Sylvester. For months now he'd been submitted to her antics as she tried to make Glee Club a faded memory, a ghost… He tried playing it nice with her, civilized. He complained to Figgins, hoping he would do as needed to be done and make her start to behave… But she had him eating out of the palm of her hand, and nothing was done, not until she'd been caught, at Sectionals, and even there it wasn't long before Figgins was squeezed under her heel and she was allowed to return, more determined than ever to just make his life and the lives of his kids a living hell. The more it went on and he was forced to hold everything in, the more he found it difficult. Every now and then a small rebellion would escape. He'd end up regretting it, sometimes, but the way she was going at him, how long did she expect him to just sit back and take it? No, he'd had enough of that.

But it wasn't just her, and he learned just how far some would go, not to penalize New Directions exclusively but also to advance their own chances. There he learned he had to doubt the people he would have believed on his side, understanding… and that one hurt him more than he'd care to admit.

And then there was Jesse … Jesse, and Shelby, and Vocal Adrenaline, that whole lot… He didn't care for any kind of attack on them as a whole, but this one situation had been so much more personal. They had thrown them all in that funk, which already infuriated him, but then Rachel…

In just a few seconds it had all flashed across his mind again. He remembered how they had all doubted Jesse's motives at first, and more so as he came and joined them one day. The club was uncertain, but Will had vouched for him, decided that what he knew of him was enough to put his trust in him. The way he saw it, he was a great asset, and if he could just be shown how to appreciate their way of doing things, they could really have something. Even as things continued to unfold, he stood by his word.

When he learned Jesse had gone back to Carmel and to Vocal Adrenaline, he could feel a tingling of trouble ahead, even without hearing about what he'd said and what he and Vocal Adrenaline did. After that though, that's when he'd been forced to come to the conclusion that he'd been fooled. More than that, he'd had a chance to protect his kids from this and he'd missed it. So then came the egg warfare on Rachel Berry.

He wanted revenge, payback, something to show that New Directions wasn't the kind of club to just take things lying down, and he certainly wasn't going to just let it happen. He was tired… Everyone was so ready to write them off as something they weren't. But they were strong, and they weren't afraid to show it.

For a beat he just wanted to be mean, like they were, to publicly humiliate them the way they'd done her. He just thought of every last classic prank he could recall… Whoopee cushions… tar and feathers… He was almost maniacal that way. He'd sat there in silence for far too long and now it was like something had snapped…

It only lasted a moment; no one ever had to know. Because he realized, just hearing himself think about it, that it would have been ridiculous. There he was, trying to teach his students one thing, and then thinking of sinking to the levels of those who tried to bring them down… He wasn't going to do that; he'd be letting them win, and that would have been even worse; they would have lost more than they already had.

So he had to find a way to let them have the victory they deserved, while getting back at Vocal Adrenaline in a way that let them see they were standing, not lowering themselves, and not at all funked… And then he had an idea.

THE END

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**A/N: This is a one-shot ficlet, which means that signing up for story alert will not bring you any alerts.  
****In the event of a sequel, the story will be separate from this one. And as chapter stories go, they are  
****always clearly indicated as such [ex: "Days 204-210" in the summary] Thank you!**


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